All 5 Uses of
third person voice
in
The American Language, by Mencken
- Just as the American rebels instinctively against such parliamentary circumlocutions as "I am not prepared to say" and "so much by way of being,"[62] just as he would fret under the forms of English journalism, with its reporting empty of drama, its third-person smothering of speeches and its complex and unintelligible jargon,[63] just so, in his daily speech and writing he chooses terseness and vividness whenever there is any choice, and seeks to make one when it doesn't exist.†
- In the third person the /-s/ is not dropped from the verb.†
*
- But the only formal trace of the old subjunctive still remaining, except the use of /be/ and /were/, is the omission of the final /s/ in the third person singular.†
third person singular = grammatical technique of telling a story using the pronouns "he/she" and "him/her"
- Without question this retention of the /n/ in these pronouns had something to do with the appearance of the /n/-declension in the treatment of /your/, /her/, /his/ and /our/, and, after /their/ had displaced /here/ in the third person plural, in /their/.†
- How the dative pronoun got itself [Pg225] fastened upon /self/ in the third person masculine and neuter is one of the mysteries of language, but there it is, and so, against all logic, history and grammatical regularity, /himself/, /themselves/ and /itself/ (not /its-self/) are in favor today.†
Definition:
seen through the eyes of an observer (rather than a participant)
In literature, third-person voice uses pronouns like "he" and "she," as contrasted to first-person voice that uses pronouns like "I" and "me." More rarely, second-person voice uses pronouns like "you" and "yours."
The third person point-of-view is often classified as omniscient or limited. In third person omniscient, the story teller knows everything.
The third person point-of-view is often classified as omniscient or limited. In third person omniscient, the story teller knows everything.